BIO ~ The Short Story

Shireen Amini is a singer-songwriter based in Bend, Oregon whose performance career has interwoven with her passion for healing and indigenous wisdom through the development of “music medicine” offerings. She strongly believes in utilizing the power of music to restore a soulful and conscious existence on our planet and in bringing music back to it’s functional roots through modern means. She performs original world-soul-pop with conscious messages, groovy beats, and often built-in interactive community elements. She also leads the lively local Latin dance rock band, ¡Chiringa! In 2007, she released a solo EP entitled, “Turnaround” and in 2017 ¡Chiringa! released it’s first full-length album entitled “Familia.” Most recently Shireen put out a single called “Skeleton in the Closet” with a project called JoyRoot. With a background in world music, drum circle facilitation, and sound healing, Shireen also facilitates community music-making events that are both exciting and soul-nourishing. She has worked with youth, lead community drumming and singing events, offered community sound healing experiences and has more music medicine offerings and recorded projects are in the works! Stay tuned.

BIO ~ The Longer Story

Shireen Amini was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and Iranian father. At age 3, her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she grew up. Shireen began training on piano at age 6, taught herself guitar and began singing and producing her own recordings in high school. She learned to use music as a deeply therapeutic means of self-expression and always had a gift for writing songs and facilitating bonding experiences with her family, sports teams, and later on her students and larger community. Shireen graduated from UCLA in 2006 with a Bachelor’s degree in Ethnomusicology. She specialized in Afro-Latin percussion, particularly the Afro-Peruvian cajon.

Shireen Amini directing her original composition "Emplena'o Brazilian Beat" for the UCLA Brazilian Music Ensemble, batUCLAda, in 2005.

After college, on a whim, Shireen decided to move to Central Oregon, which marked the beginning of a golden era of personal and career growth. In 2007, she released her first EP entitled Turnaround, a mix of original soul, funk, Latin and pop songs, referencing the "bouncing back" from a challenging emotional period in her life. For eight years, Shireen served the Central Oregon community as a performer and music teacher. She developed two successful youth music programs based on principles of empowerment, a choir called the Peace Chords and a drumming program called Roots Rhythm. She studied drum circle facilitation with Arthur Hull and fed this into her work with youth and women’s drumming groups. She tapped into a rich musical community, particularly connected with the Sisters Folk Festival, from which she learned much more about the craft of songwriting. Shireen performed her own original music as a solo act and with the Shireen Amini Band. She also supported various Central Oregon acts as a backup singer and percussionist. Concurrently, she began her personal healing journey, which lead her to training in compassionate communication, energy healing, ritual and grief work.

The music video for Shireen's original holiday song "This Time" featuring her youth choir, the Peace Chords in 2012.

In 2013, Shireen was asked to put together a band for a Cinco de Mayo event that did songs mostly in Spanish. In that moment, Shireen formed what became the successful Bend-based Latin dance rock band, ¡Chiringa!. She decided to go back to school in 2015 and completed her certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at CIIS in San Francisco. This program reinvigorated her belief in the healing power of music and opened up a world of possibilities for combining her previous experience as a musician and passion for healing. Thus, Shireen Amini Music Medicine was born. During her time at CIIS, she was exposed to a form of community singing called Circlesinging that had been brought forth by Bobby McFerrin. She was fortunate to take a training from one of McFerrin’s protegés, David Worm, and when she returned to Bend, started offering Circlesinging to her community.

Circlesinging event at Hawthorn Healing Arts Center in Bend, Oregon on Thursday, October 6, 2016. This form of singing in a circle has been passed down to Shireen Amini by David Worm, protegé of Bobby McFerrin.

In 2017, ¡Chiringa! released it’s first full-length album called “Familia.” This band continues to perform locally and regionally in service of the beautiful and lively Latin culture and its people.

¡Chiringa!’s debut music video of “Vitamin P” from the album Familia. Filmed and edited by Andrés 'Andy' García.

Recently, Shireen has really been really rooting in the spiritual core of recovery work and nature / soul healing work. She has found herself strongly aligning with the philosophical underpinnings of the field of Ecopsychology, one that finds our ecology and personal psychology deeply interconnected. Her focus has become clear and has been coming into fruition through a concept of songwriting and performance that is in service of our planet and is infused with community elements. More specifically, this vision has manifest through the project called JoyRoot. In October 2018, Shireen put out a single and music video of her original song “Skeleton in the Closet” with this project. It is most indicative of what is to come. Shireen continues to offer community singing and sound healing events and more music medicine offerings and recorded projects are in the works! The story will continue to unfold…

Shireen’s original song “Skeleton in the Closet” performed by JoyRoot. Video by Jesse Roberts of Rise Up International.